APPENDIX A. 
407 
in the spring, and continue for four or five months in great beauty, nothing 
more being required than to give them an occasional pruning. 
It would be waste of time to detail any more of these minor experiments, 
and I shall therefore conclude by giving a short description of my largest ex- 
perimental house. My object in this building was to obtain as many varied 
modifications of the natural conditions of plants as it was possible to procure 
in the small space to which I was confined. 
The greatest length is twenty-four feet, width twelve feet, and extreme height 
eleven feet : — 
“ Exiguus spatio, variis sed fertilis herbis.” 
By building up rock-work to within a foot of the glass, and by varying the 
surface in every possible way, very different degrees of heat, light and moisture, 
are apportioned to the various plants. The house is heated in the winter by 
means of hot-water pipes, which preserve the lower portion during that season 
at a much higher temperature than the upper ; the latter however has the ad- 
vantage in the height of summer. The range of the thermometer throughout 
the year in the lowest part is between 45" and 90", whilst at the top it is between 
30" and 130". Thus we procure, in a space not exceeding ten feet, an insular, 
and what may be called an excessive climate. There is no sunshine from the 
end of October to the end of March. In the lower portion are planted the 
following Palms : — Phcenix dactylifera, P. leonensis^ Rhapis Jlahelliformis, R. 
Sicrotsik, a small but beautiful species from Japan, Chamcerops humilis, Sea- 
forthia nobilis, Cocos hotryophora, Sahal palmatus, Latania horbonica, and one 
or two others. Among the ferns we have Asplenium prcemorsum^'^ remarkably 
fine, Diplazium seramporensef (the Asplenium pubescens of Link), Didymo- 
chlcena sinuosa, and more than a hundred other species. Of Scitamineous plants, 
of which there are ten or a dozen species, the Calathea zebrina is the most con- 
spicuous. The Caladium esculentum^ and numerous other plants which do not 
require much sun, likewise grow in this part of the house. In the upper region 
are numerous species of Aloe^ Cactus, Bilbergia, Begonia, &c. &c. Two or 
three varieties of rose likewise flower here, but neither so well nor so freely as 
in the cases already described. In hot summers the Mimosa pudica flowers 
freely, as do one or two species of Passijiora. In the intermediate spaces are 
Disandra prosirata. Fuchsias, and various other plants. From the roof are sus- 
pended numerous succulents and Orchideous epiphytes, but the temperature 
falls too low in the winter, and rarely rises sufficiently high in the summer, for 
these splendid things without a foundation, % so that they rarely flower. In a 
large vessel containing about twenty gallons of water, Papyrus elegans grows 
very well, as does Vallisneria spiralis, and some other aquatics. In addition to 
* This is a valuable plant for such a house, as each frond lasts three or four years in perfection. 
+ This plant, which had been sterile at Loddiges for fifty years, produced a frond two years ago 
covered with fructification. 
T The meaning of the name given to them by the South Sea Islanders. — Williams. 
